I have tested this rigorously with WP 3.5.1, and it is extremely stable. I have also implemented it into my WP test site by adding the "ribbon" theme directly in the "wp-includes" directory for tinymce.

I do have a working example, if anyone would like to take a look. I can provide temp usernames and passwords to my test site.

I don't know if core team will be very interested in the theme.. however, I believe theme and plugin developers (namely me) will be able to utilize this theme, and provide a nice "word-style" tinymce interface to WP users.

I only see two potential downsides at the moment:

It will add approx. 800k to the WP download file size.

Plugin and theme devs will need to use a slightly different code to add buttons to the ribbon theme.

Okay... do you know if there is a way to change the "theme" path in the tinymce initialization process? I know the theme name itself can be changed.. but I'm not sure about the path to the theme.

For example, I can't access the "wp-includes" on each users system to add the theme. So, I think it can only be done via the tinymce_before_init hook.

Can I include the theme in my plugin... and use that in the tinymce hook? I don't think it's possible... but perhaps you guys know something I don't. Or, would I need require each user to install the theme in their "wp-includes" directory?